Chapter 34 #2
The pieces were beginning to fit together. Everything they’d learned before, and now a shipping network that seemed designed to make illegal cargo disappear.
“Can SIBYL trace the other manifests?” Hoot asked.
Haley smiled without humor. “Already doing it.” More information populated on her screen. “And it gets worse.”
“Of course it does,” Eggs muttered.
Haley highlighted several shipments. “These manifest numbers connect to at least six other shipments. Different companies. Different ports. Same financial signatures. Same altered documentation.”
Hoot looked at Flint. “PSG?”
“Not directly,” Haley said. “But there are enough overlapping connections to make me uncomfortable.”
“They’re definitely moving weapons through the waterways.” Voodoo stated what they all knew in their guts to be the truth.
Baker nodded. “That would explain the crates.”
“And the island,” Hoot said.
Everyone went quiet. Lark looked at him. “They’re using the island as a temporary transfer point.”
“Exactly.”
Haley leaned closer to her screen. “SIBYL is finding additional locations now. But there’s something else you need to see.”
A shipping manifest replaced the photograph.
At first glance, it looked like another maze of company documents, cargo codes, and transfer information.
Each page featured a distinctive logo in the upper right-hand corner: a stylized ‘W’ artfully superimposed on a globe.
Hoot scanned it, not immediately recognizing it.
“Who’s the consignee?” Flint asked.
Before Haley could answer, Lark leaned forward, then gasped. “Whitmore,” she whispered.
Everyone went silent. Hoot turned toward Lark, studying her face. She was staring at the screen as though she'd just seen a ghost. “What?”
“That logo.” She pointed toward the upper corner of the manifest. “It’s Whitmore Global Holdings.”
Through the computer screen, Flint regarded her. “You sure?”
Lark gave a short, humorless laugh. “I’d better be. I spent years looking at it.”
Hoot watched her expression shift as memories surfaced. He knew enough about the Whitmores now to understand what that meant. Lark had spent years moving through their world, from galas and charity events to foundation dinners and corporate functions. She must have seen that damned logo everywhere.
“It was on everything,” Lark continued. “Invitations. Foundation paperwork. Event programs. Corporate presentations.” Her mouth twisted. “Bradley, my ex, even had cufflinks with it. His father was very big on making sure everyone knew who the Whitmore heir was.”
Hoot’s gut tightened. Haley’s fingers paused above her keyboard. “Shit. She’s right.” Then her fingers were flying across the keyboard again. “SIBYL is pulling Whitmore Global Holdings’ corporate records, shipping history, subsidiaries, financial connections—everything I can get.”
“SIBYL” was Haley’s baby, an intelligence-analysis program she’d built to sift through mountains of information and find connections a human analyst might miss. If there was a thread tying the Whitmores to those shipments, Hoot had a feeling SIBYL would find it.
Flint leaned toward the camera. “Let’s see what it finds.”
Data began filling Haley’s screens. She stared at it for several seconds. Then her expression changed. “Well, that’s interesting.”
Hoot’s shoulders tightened. He’d learned to hate those words coming from Haley. “What?”
“Whitmore Global Holdings isn’t just listed on this manifest.” She brought up another document. The same globe-and-W logo stared back at them. Then two more. “Three shipments,” Haley said. “All connected to Whitmore Global Holdings. And all three have discrepancies in their manifests.”
Hoot leaned closer. “Cargo?”
“Declared as industrial equipment.”
Baker’s voice came through the speakers. “But the shipping weights don’t match the declared cargo.”
Nobody spoke. Hoot looked at Lark. She’d gone pale. “Those crates had been right there,” she whispered.
Hoot reached beneath the table and found her hand. “Yeah,” he said quietly.
For several seconds, no one spoke. Then Baker’s voice cut through the silence. “Wait.” Hoot looked toward the screen. Baker was already typing rapidly. “I’ve got something.”
Haley leaned toward her monitors. “What?”
“I ran Whitmore Global Holdings through the data we recovered from the vault.”
Hoot’s pulse kicked. “And?”
Baker brought up another set of records. “There’s a connection to Calloway.”
Flint’s expression hardened. “How direct?”
“Direct enough.” Baker highlighted several transactions. “Calloway, through PSG, served as an outside executive consultant for Whitmore Global Holdings on several international security and logistics contracts.”
Hoot stared at the screen. “Security and logistics?”
“That’s the official description,” Baker said. “But there’s more.”
Haley’s fingers flew across her keyboard. “SIBYL just found it.” Another window appeared. A series of shell companies connected the Whitmore shipments to an offshore holding group. That group had appeared in several of the same records associated with PSG.
Hoot’s jaw clenched. Haley pointed at the screen. “One of Whitmore Global Holdings’ subsidiaries has paid a series of consulting fees to companies controlled by PSG.”
Flint leaned back slowly. “That’s our connection.”
Baker nodded. “Calloway sits right in the middle of it.”
“Which explains his presence at the Whitmore Foundation Gala,” mused Hoot staring at the web of names and companies. The pieces he’d been chasing for years suddenly shifted into a pattern he didn’t like.
The PSG symbol had led them to the crates. The numbers had led them to the manifests. The manifests had led them to a shipping network moving suspicious cargo through American waterways.
And now that network had led them straight to Whitmore Global Holdings. Straight to Lark’s family.
His eyes flicked to her. The family she’d spent years trying to escape. The family whose son had been standing beside Grant Calloway at the gala.
And Calloway—the man Hoot had never been able to shake the feeling was hiding something—was tied to it all.
Hoot felt every protective instinct he possessed surge to life.
Whatever the hell the Whitmores were involved in, one thing was becoming painfully clear.
Lark hadn’t simply stumbled onto someone else’s secret on that island.
She had already been standing dangerously close to the center of it for years.
“SIBYL just found another match.” Everyone turned toward her. She looked at the screen, then at Flint. “It’s a manifest from the same operation.”
Hoot’s pulse accelerated. “Where’s it going?”
The destination appeared on the screen. Virginia. Not far from Bell Creek.
Nobody spoke. Hoot looked at Lark. He thought of everything they’d uncovered. The crates. PSG. And now a manifest trail leading through waterways and within striking distance of Bell Creek.
It was no longer a theory. They’d stumbled onto part of something much bigger.
Flint’s expression hardened. “Haley, Baker, trace every shipment associated with that manifest number. Find out where every crate went.”
“Already working on it,” Haley said.
“Voodoo, get Jeeves and Eggs. I want eyes on that Virginia location.”
Hoot’s instincts kicked into gear. “And Calloway?”
Flint looked directly at him. “We start digging into everything Grant Calloway has touched.”
Lark’s hand slipped into Hoot’s. He squeezed it. The mystery she’d accidentally uncovered wasn’t sitting on some distant battlefield anymore. It was moving through their backyard.
And whoever was behind it had already proven they were willing to kill anyone who got too close.